Abstract:

Objective: To investigate the preventive effect of Chaenomeles fruits on non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) in mice. Methods: NASH model was established by high fat diet feeding combined with hypodermic injection at low dose of CCl4. NASH model group fed high fat diet containing Chaenomeles fruits for 5 consecutive weeks was served as Chaenomeles fruitsintervened group, while the mice in control group were fed normal diet. At the end of experiments, all the mice were sacrificed to analyze ALT, AST, TG and CHO levels in serum. Pathological changes of hepatic tissues were observed under microscope and mRNA expression of genes such as TGF-β, PD-L1, TLR-2, TLR-4 and IL-1β in hepatic tissues was detected by the real time RT-PCR technique. Results: Compared to normal mice, ALT, TG and CHO levels in serum exhibited an obvious increase in NASH mice and a significant reduction in Chaenomeles fruits-intervened NASH mice (P＜0.05). Hepatocyte swelling, as well as neutrophilic infiltration and hepatocyte ballooning exhibited a decrease in Chaenomeles fruits-intervened NASH mice. Meanwhile, a significant decrease in hepatic TLR-2, TLR-4, IL-1β, TGF-β and PD-L1 were also observed in Chaenomeles fruits-intervened NASH mice. Conclusion: Chaenomeles fruits have a significant preventive effect on non-alcoholic steatohepatitis in mice, which is achieved by regulating TLR and death receptor expression and the secretion of inflammatory cytokines.

Key words: non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, Chaenomeles fruits, preventive effect, gene expression